Late again, late again. I feel like a character from Alice in Wonderland. This time my excuse is the horrific anxiety associated with 2020 in general, and the presidential election in specific. I’ve been struggling with my scleroderma all week: blue-lipped and short of breath, struggling to walk, fatigued and in pain. Not a good week at all! I stayed in bed this weekend with Hannah and my knitting and I am finally coming out of it tonight. It hasn’t been helping me that the Covid numbers in my state are just skyrocketing to new heights and near by municipalities are clamping down with curfews and other restrictions. Sigh. Thank heavens there is a state-wide mask mandate that applies to stores or I wouldn’t be able to go out at all. I’m now in my 8th month of stay-at-home, and the end is nowhere in sight.
In other 2020 news I now have email arriving in my inbox in Italian. I don’t read Italian… Who had this on their 2020 Bingo card?
It is snowing like crazy in the mountains this evening and we are finally coming to the end of our wildfires. Yay!!
Knitting
So, while resting up and avoiding the never-ending, anxiety-inducing election results I did get a lot of knitting done. Hannah was an exceptional help as I steadily worked on my shawl for most of a week, and then supervised the blocking for me as I worked with pins and blocking wires. Let me present to you my finished Far Away Dreams shawl (Joji Locatelli).
I am so pleased with how this turned out. Soft and very squishy from the garter stitch, it is perfect to wear on a cold evening or while reading in bed. I am coming to appreciate rectangular shawls as they are shorter in the back so they stay free when you are sitting down and are fairly easy to bunch up around your neck as a scarf under a coat. I ran out of the blue yarn so after some stash diving I decided to use the black MCN yarn for the outer trim, which totally worked as the lace yarn had black and blue flecks in it. So happy with the final result!
Once the shawl was blocking I dived back into my bag of unfinished projects and pulled out a hibernating sweater and those socks that I cast on with Hue Loco yarn a couple of weeks ago. I’ve focused on the sweater this week and the sock is seeing a little action too. Check it out!!
This is Misurina by Caitlin Hunter, a short sleeved cropped sweater knit with fingering yarn on rather large gauge of 20 stitches per inch. I am knitting this on size 6 needles to make this yarn work, and I am so happy with the fabric coming off the needles. I just separated the sleeves from the body of the sweater so things are going to go much faster now. I’m kind of wondering about knitting another one using DK yarn from the stash; I have enough yarn to make one with long sleeves. Hmmm…
I’m also working a little on the socks being knit with Hue Loco yarn (remember… I sort of lost control and went on a spending spree a few weeks ago and got yarn in every color in the new Fall palette. I regret nothing! It is important to have fun and some reckless moments while times are just crazy all around you…). Anyway, this sock is being knit with the Elixir colorway.
Elixir is the colorway next to the Uschitita on the left side of the picture. I’m working more steadily on the socks now as I can’t wait to cast on another color from the buying spree… I’m already dreaming about casting on the blue Uschitita or the purple Hue Loco…
Garden
It has gotten a little chancy for plants that live outside now that the ovenight temperatures dip below freezing so I ordered some shelves online and brought in my favorite miniature roses from outside and set them up in the living room to create an indoor garden. So happy to knit in my garden again in the afternoon sunshine in that room. The perfect spot to read. The favored cat nap spot…
Reading
I am really in a mystery mood right now. I finished one last week and am working on a historical mystery/suspense book now that I’m enjoying.
Careless Whiskers is a cozy mystery and a fast read. The main character, Charlie, works part time in the college library and solves murders on the side. It’s a fun gig if you can get it. 🙂 He lives in the 3 story house that he inherited from his deceased aunt that is too perfect for words: the house comes with a housekeeper who takes care of everything including the laundry and cooks fabulous southern meals on the side. She even takes care of the cats! To make this even more envy-inducing Charlie has boarders who help out with cat-sitting and provide the meals when Azalea is off on the weekends. There is a giant Maine coon cat and a kitten in the book; both of these animals are perfectly behaved and never chase squirrels or climb the curtains… did I say that this is a cozy mystery? Anyway, there is a theatrical production, players with enormous egos, a death, and a cast of suspects that includes Charlie’s daughter. Charlie eliminates suspects between naps and meals that feature more biscuits then I eat in a year while taking the perfectly-behaved cat almost everywhere he goes. See, a perfect book to read during a difficult week.
I’m about halfway through Conspiracy and greatly enjoying the characters and the story. Okay, Giordano Bruno is one of my favorite characters ever!! A philosopher at odds with the Catholic church and an intrepid solver of murders, he is neck deep in intrigue in Paris this time. The battle for control between religious factions in Paris is pretty intense as Huguenots conspire to place their candidate on the throne which is currently occupied by a Catholic king. Bruno is caught in the middle of all of this as he is forced to work for King Henri, the English ambassador, and several other players on the board. Whew. Things are tough for Bruno who is trying to handle some personal issues of his own (like, maybe he can be restored to a state of grace with the Catholic church and perhaps run down a women he kind of likes…) while getting ambushed by different agents of the factions battling for control, and… he keeps losing his knife! The knife that Sir Francis Drake gave him in the last book! Surely, the knife will be recovered soon… Bruno needs his knife! This is an engaging book to be sure and I can’t wait to get to the end of it because I have another Bruno book waiting for me on the kindle. Yay! Good reading times.
Well, that’s it.
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Oh goodness Hannah in that gift bag is the cutest photo. Thank goodness she’s with you and I’m sure she enjoyed snuggling up when you weren’t feeling great. All your projects look lovely and I think the black edge does go well next to the lace, as it really brings the lace section forward. Stay safe x
I think that the Hannah in the bag picture could become a meme; it was just the perfect moment and the right colors in the bag. 🙂 She has been great all week and super supportive but every time I get up she can’t believe I’m not playing with her. Poor thing. I am getting better and today I feel almost normal. I think that I got really lucky with that black edging for the lace. I looked at several variegated yarns in the stash and then realized that my best bet was the black. Boring, but the most versatile.
Oh, I am staying so safe!!
Your shawl turned out great! In the close up of it, you can see all of the speckles in the ivory yarn. I’m with you on the rectangular shawls! On cold WI days, they make the most snuggly scarf. I am glad you are starting to feel better. Waiting for the election results has had everyone feeling extra anxious and stressed. Stay safe.
I am really happy with the shawl; today it snowed and I am going to rock it while shopping for groceries. That black trim goes nicely with my black mask!! Seriously, I think that I am completely taken with the pattern as I wonder if I can get some more made for Christmas presents. Garter is so fast, but then there is the lace…
The stress has been just awful and will continue for some time to come, but I am sleeping better now that the election has been called. Today I was so grateful to hear that the state next to ours (Utah) is clamping down with a mask mandate at last. We have been hurt in my opinion by being surrounded by states that are not treating Covid seriously, but as the numbers increase I think that common sense will return. What a year it has been!!
The shawl is lovely, and the sweater too! I can’t wait to see it completed. I had two Russian emails on my 2020 bingo card.
Russian emails?!! How does this happen? Only in 2020. 🙂
I always love seeing all your knitting and Hannah photos. I love that shawl, the sweater will be great, and yay for more hand knit socks! Here’s hoping things get better on the COVID front, the election being done and its result are definitely helping me breathe a bit more easily.
Thank you! I took the sweater off the needles last night and tried it on for fit… it fits!! The best feeling in the world! It is snowing outside which has motivated me to knit like crazy on it. I’m so lucky that Hannah doesn’t chase the yarn or chomp on the knitting very much, but if I leave it unattended she drags it off to another room…
Now that the election is done it is my hope that some of these governors will issue mask orders and take some common sense solutions to control the spread of the virus. This is just ridiculous and should never have been politicized!! Thankfully Utah did step things up today. 🙂 I have been sleeping much better since the election results came in. Whew! This has been so stressful!
Your knits are gorgeous as always:)
Our governor has instituted a curfew and stiffer mask mandate. I don’t know that it will do any good because in the next breath they say most spread is happening in homes.
We had a rattling square filled on our 2020 bingo card yesterday: an earthquake. Yes, I live in New England where they are rare and usually not felt. My house shook and windows rattled. It was one more surreal event for the year. Stay well!
Thank you. I spend so much time agonizing over yarn and color before I start projects so I’m happy when it all works out. In my opinion the decision to send the kids back to school was a big mistake and we are now seeing the consequences of that as the spread is coming through families. On my block the kids are all playing with each other up and down the street and I can hear social gatherings in the evenings on weekends… The other big events that I thinks have had impact here are the Sturgis motorcycle rally and then the big political rallies as those people all dispersed to a larger region once the event was over. Hopefully all of that will calm down now.
An earthquake!! 2020 strikes again. I was raised in Southern California in a city on the San Andreas fault so I’m an old hand with earthquakes and kind of miss them here in Colorado. 🙂
Your shawl is gorgeous, and so is the start of your sweater! So glad that the wildfires are hopefully winding down and hoping your air quality gets better! We have had high COVID numbers here as well, and had a couple good earthquakes over the weekend – in the neighborhood of 5 pointers. Miss Hannah gets more and more beautiful and adorable every week! The picture of her in the bag made me smile – years ago I had a cat who loved being in bags more than almost anything. Hang in there – stay safe and take care!
Thank you. I’ve been doing a lot of stress knitting and it is so nice that the finished article is something nice. 🙂 It snowed a lot in the mountains over the weekend so the air is clear today and I think that they are finally getting those fires out. So glad that it is over for the people who were being impacted by all of it. Our governor is hoping to avoid another lockdown, which is good, but I’m stockpiling yarn anyway just in case. 🙂 Earthquakes! Karen in northeastern US also had an earthquake last week. I grew up in Southern California so they were common, but it is so long since I’ve experienced one it would really be an event for me now.
Hannah is developing into the best little cat ever. She has a happy little trill that she uses as she bounces around the house, and boy does she love to play with water!! Remember when grocery bags were paper? Hannah would love to play in those bags!! Stay safe and take care!
🙂
That is going to be one beautiful jumper! And I still love the way that sock is turning out, it’s like it has bands of light across it.